Presenters Warren Beaty and Faye Dunaway had the honor of awarding the Oscar for Best Picture at tonight’s 89th Academy Awards, announcing to the packed house and millions of TV viewers that La La Land was the victor.

The crowd erupted into applause, and amateur Oscar predictors the nation over breathed easy. Everyone expected the film to win.

But then something truly strange happened. A member of team La La Land took the mic to announce that there had been a mistake. “Moonlight won best picture.”

Apparently, Beaty and Dunaway read off the wrong card — one that listed Emma Stone winning for best actress — when they announced the winner.

As Moonlight’s shocked cast and crew assembled on stage, host Jimmy Kimmel made a joke out of the enormous mistake, telling the La La Land producers, “I’d like to see you win an Oscar anyway. Why can’t we give out a whole bunch of them?”

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24 Comments

I don’t think Moonlight is the best film of the year (I pick Arrival). Let’s be honest, if Trump didn’t win and diversity & inclusiveness didn’t become an issue this year then this film would have lost to La La Land.

Just admit you hate black people and GO. Moonlight has been widely praised since it’s original debut and has won tons of awards at a number of ceremonies leading up to last night. It swept the Spirit Awards. What about Arrival makes it so damn good exactly? White people trying to communicate with aliens has been done before and it was some of Amy Adams’ worst acting I’ve seen yet and she was horrible in Superman.

Moonlight was a good movie, but not a great one. It was undone by aimless dialogue and weak plotting in act three. Overall, the field of Oscar contenders for best movie was not the strongest this year. But Mahershala Ali certainly deserved his Oscar, his performance was transcendent. Interesting how Moonlight has generated almost no debate within the black community about tackling homophobia. Nobody of any prominence within the black community seems to have anything to say on the matter. And with a box office take of under $30 million, it hasn’t been seen by many people at all.

Maybe this was a political move by the Oscars but a good one ! the film was a good film which is in my opinion the most important thing !! this film may not have been visually stunning affects or have the best actions scenes or aliens flying out every corner ! but for me as a 36 gay Persian guy I am soo happy to have seen a film which told my story, as an ethnic minority growing up in projects within a homophobic environment ! AT LAST PEOPLE OF COLOUR HAVE A VOICE ! im sick of seeing white people win everything ! yes we exist just because gay white folks don’t want to admit we exists we do well we do ! this films tells our story !!

La La Land was a nice film, but I don’t think it was best of the year. A lot of thinly veiled sentiment in these comments. “Politics” is code for when a minority-starring production gets recognition over a competing project that is more of a ‘mainstream’ favorite.

All of the “Moonlight was overrated” and “No Blacks” crowd can take a stadium of seats!!!! One thing I saw many Black gays, myself included, saying last night on Twitter was to watch for many White gays to somehow crap on Moonlight winning OR write think pieces on sites like this or Towelroad and other gay sites with primarily White audiences where casual racism is always seen in most subjects related to about anything Black. Therefore, don’t make this about being a “collective” win for the LGBTQ community when most of the time mainstream gays want nothing to do with us.

So when discussing Moonlight do not gloss over its Blackness because that is as much a part of the film as well. I appreciate this story being written by Black folk for Black gay men and not having to adapt to Hollywood’s whitewashed standards. This movie was for us as seen specifically though the lens of Black gay men and so thats my warning to the folks who will try to talk about the win and not mention its Blackness. No sir. You will not. I also appreciate a Best Picture win about Black folk being about something other than slavery or overcoming slavery or racism.

It was a film written by two black men, one gay, and directed by a black man, about a poor, black, gay man from Miami, it cost only $1.5 million, had no real stars, and it was beautifully filmed and acted. It’s a triumph in every way! CONGRATULATIONS, Moonlight!

La La Land was one of those films that was good, but the praise was so heavy handed, that you have to kind of shit on it to put it in perspective. It absolutely did not deserve the amount of Oscar nominations it got, and Emma Stone winning? Sorry, but it feels like the Marisa Tomei of this generation.

Moonlight was a better film than lala land; but despite how Hollywood claims to be liberal, celebrating diversity, etc. a lot of gay and bisexual actors and actresses are closeted, and they ignore the fact that black people can be extremely homophobic and biphobic.

Well if the box office is any indication, La La Land was in fact the better film. They had to nominate Moonlight though so as not to appear racist or homophobic. The Oscars are always about politics, not quality of work.

Congratulations to a groundbreaking and excellent film: Moonlight. Bravo to Jordan Horowitz for ending all doubt by immediately snatching that card out of Beatty’s hand and showing it to the camera. On a lighter note, at least Mommie Dearest won’t be the worst thing Faye Dunaway is remembered for.

It seems funny to me that some white Americans can bring themselves to identify with movies about, Hobbits, Wizards, Ghosts, and even Aliens, but then come up with all kinds of excuses as the why they can’t identify with stories that center around the non-white characters.

A film being the “best” is always subjective. La La Land, like Moonlight, is a great film. More Academy members found greater merit for the latter. It isn’t necessarily political; to say that is analogous to saying a black person who succeeds in college or career can only be a product of affirmative action rather than their own talents.

I found the comment about La La Land being the better film because it had higher box office receipts funny and naive. Clearly a musical with good looking well known actors (it doesn’t hurt they are white) will be more widely received than a gay-themed film featuring an all black cast. The initial release was just in four theaters in the U.S. Only because of it’s buzz in multiple awards shows was that finally expanded to over 1000 just last month (and still not everywhere, you’d still have to fly to see it if one lives in certain states). Similarly, Brokeback Mountain – with an all star cast of white actors – initially was released only in NY, LA and San Fran.